The head of Facebook's Latin America division was released from jail yesterday, one day after he was arrested and accused of failing to comply with a judge's request for data related to an organized crime and drug trafficking investigation.

The Brazilian federal police arrested Diego Dzoran on Tuesday after Facebook did not hand over information from a WhatsApp account, according to the New York Times. Following the arrest, the company filed a habeus corpus petition that was granted by a different judge on Wednesday, who found the arrest "an extreme measure," the Times reported. That led to Dzoran's release.

The arrest is just the latest in a long line of issues Facebook has faced in Brazil.

In December, a judge ordered phone companies to temporarily shut down WhatsApp, Facebook's wildly popular messaging application, after the company reportedly failed to respond to a court order. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly responded, saying that it was "a sad day for Brazil." While a judge quickly overturned the ban, the service was down for about 48 hours, nonetheless.

Reuters reported at the time that the WhatsApp ban was over a case involving a drug trafficker linked to the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)—the country's largest criminal organization—who allegedly used WhatsApp to carry out his crimes. Facebook was reportedly provided a judicial order last July to hand over data related to the person's communication. It declined to comply, prompting the shutdown.

"I am stunned that our efforts to protect people's data would result in such an extreme decision by a single judge to punish every person in Brazil who uses WhatsApp," Zuckerberg said at the time.

Related

The case smacks of the ongoing battle between Apple and the FBI over whether the company should work with law enforcement to provide software that would unlock one of the San Bernardino attacker's phones. Apple says it's protecting user privacy, as is Facebook in Brazil. However, it seems Brazil has upped the ante in its battle with Facebook.

Facebook did not immediately repond to a request for comment.

Editor's Note:This story was updated on Feb. 3 with news of Dzoran's release.

As a hardware analyst, Tom tests and reviews laptops, peripherals, and much more at PC Labs in New York City. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Before that, he worked for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper, where he occasionally dunked waterproof hard drives in glasses of water. In his spare time, he's written on topics as...
More »